The door to Geoffrey’s study burst open, and the person there in the doorway wasn’t Angela. It was Ian, and he was holding a limp Matthieu in his arms.
“Geoffrey, dammit, don’t you ever check your phone messages? I’ve been calling all morning and most of last night.”
Geoffrey stood and hovered uncertainly. In truth, he’d turned off his phone and shoved it in a drawer, not wanting the temptation of hounding the alpha that no longer needed and surely didn’t want him. “No, I… what’s wrong? Should I ring for my brother?”
Ian laid the limp Matthieu on the leather sofa. “I don’t know. Perhaps. I’m not sure what’s wrong with him. He’s been ill most of the night, crying and babbling, and little that he’s said makes any sense. I have no idea what to do. I wanted to take him to a hospital, but he insisted, when he was lucid, that he needed to see you.”
“Me? Why?”
Ian ignored the question. “Sweetheart, can you hear me?”
The endearment stabbed Geoffrey through the chest. It had, as he’d suspected, begun. Ian was already more than half in love with the omega. Soon, their mating would be an inevitability.
“Mon Dieu, where am I?” Matthieu asked, his voice thin and tired. “Where ismonsieur dragon grincheux?”
“I brought you to him, just like I promised,” Ian assured. “He’s right here.”
Geoffrey fell to his knees beside the sofa. “I’m right here,” he said.
Matthieu pinned him with a tired glare. “This is all your fault,dragon stupide.” Then he closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep.
Geoffrey looked at Ian. “I don’t understand.”
Ian looked bleak. “I believe I might. God help us all.”
11
Matthieu
Matthieu awoke, disoriented and groggy, in a bed so long and narrow that it might very well have been made for a giraffe. He stretched elegantly, then rolled over and buried his face in the nearest pillow. It was firm and no-nonsense, exactly like the dragon it belonged to.
Geoffrey.
Matthieu opened his eyes. The scent of Geoffrey, rather like oud wood and musty old paper—the kind whose outer edges were lined with gold leaf, and whose pulp was as soft as cotton—flooded his lungs, and before he could help himself, he pushed his nose into the pillow and breathed it in deeper.
Matthieu’s cock throbbed, and as it did, dread knotted in his stomach. “Merde.”
This wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.
Sounds of muffled conversation penetrated the walls—or was it the floor? The more Matthieu focused, the more it seemed to come from downstairs. Ian, he was certain, was the one speaking now. His voice was confident and crisp, and had all the hallmarks that Matthieu associated with the quintessential American—at least, the Northern kind. Matthieu had yet to cross paths with the twangy-sounding cowboy types who he’d seen on the silver screen, their shirts off and their sculpted bodies gleaming with sweat.
Once upon a time, the thought of a man like that had appealed to him, but now all he could think of was finely fitted suits and lean, graceful bodies. Brooding eyes. Elegant noses. Pale skin and dark hair.
Matthieu groaned and crushed his face into the too-firm pillow. Breaking his nose wouldn’t help the situation any, but it would be a kind distraction from the chaos unraveling in his mind. Perhaps, if he systematically broke his bones one by one, the dragons running the wretched experiment would deem him mentally unsound and send him away.
But it’s already too late for that, isn’t it?a voice in his mind announced gleefully in a singsong voice.The damage has already been done.
Below, Ian stopped talking. Geoffrey picked up in his place, and Matthieu’s heart skipped a treacherous beat. Just like that, the fog that had clouded his mind on the flight to Aurora cleared, and he was left levelheaded.
The situation reminded Matthieu, much to his alarm, of the fairy tales he’d been told as a young child. Sleeping Beauty, who’d awoken thanks to true love’s kiss, and Snow White, whose curse was lifted thanks to her dashing prince. Woodland creatures might as well have poured through the bedroom’s windows and assembled on Matthieu’s bed, their big, bright eyes wide, and their clever little paws ready to do his bidding. There were peacocks here already, after all. It wouldn’t take much for some chipmunks to appear, and from there, who knew?
Deer?
Maybe.
At this point, very little would have surprised him.
Matthieu assumed, based on what he heard, that he was on an upper floor, but knowing his luck, the peacocks would fly the deer straight through the window, their cloven-hoofed legs kicking the ever-loving shit out of the glass panes.
